- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
After weeks of authoritarian threats to crush protests with the military, cancel elections, conquer foreign countries, and send masked agents door-to-door to round up anyone who can’t prove their citizenship, Trump on Wednesday told an already uneasy room full of world leaders that “sometimes you need a dictator.”
The offhanded comment came in the middle of a rambling speech at the reception dinner for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, in which Trump congratulated himself on a different rambling speech he’d given earlier that day at the summit.
“We had a good speech, we got great reviews. I can’t believe it, we got good reviews on that speech,” Trump said of the widely mocked address in which he continued to demand the US take over Greenland (which he repeatedly referred to as “Iceland”) and made new tariff threats against Canada and Europe if they resist the annexation.
I don’t even think a benevolent dictator would be all that great. Dictators are always at the mercy of the information they receive, so you’d also need a cabinet full of benevolent secretaries, who in turn would need agencies full of benevolent directors, who’d need benevolent managers, etc. I just don’t think autocracy is an efficient form of government regardless of intent. Checks on power exist to limit the damage that those entrusted with power can do, regardless of their intentions.